Dark Signals

Insight Myanmar

Episode #384: “As a journalist, you always hope for consequences. I mean, otherwise our reporting is meaningless,” says Bjørn Nordahl, a Norwegian investigative reporter who led a two-year probe into Telenor’s withdrawal from Myanmar. The case was especially painful because the company, once praised for driving SIM card prices down and sparking a communication revolution in 2014, ended up entangled with a brutal military regime.

After the February 2021 coup, Telenor initially disclosed military orders to shut down networks and block Facebook. But on February 14 its CEO told Norwegian media, “From now on, I can’t say anything” about Myanmar. From that point until March 2022, the company ceased public disclosures while complying with junta demands.

Nordahl’s team examined over 750 leaked documents. These showed two categories of orders: shutdown directives and direct requests for subscriber information. One June 2021 internal assessment warned that handing over data on a PDF member meant “the impact of sharing this information is extremely high” and could enable arrests. Another request concerned a doctor close to Aung San Suu Kyi; Telenor concluded “it’s likely that this number will be used to support the military examinations of the criminal case against Aung San Suu Kyi.” Nordahl notes Telenor admitted, when asked, that “we never said no” to junta requests, with lawyers justifying every handover under Myanmar’s military law, while “Norwegian legislation does not come into consideration.”

At home, questions arose about oversight. Around 30 meetings took place between Telenor and Norway’s Ministry of Trade and Commerce, though their content remains undisclosed. Nordahl highlighted that the Labor Party was in power during both entry and exit, adding, “probably there will be people in the opposition who are very interested in this story.” He said opposition groups already call for an independent investigation, and predicted, “this claim will be even stronger and probably reach another level after we have published this.”

For Nordahl, the saga illustrates the limits of corporate responsibility under authoritarianism. Yet he insists the story must be documented, both for future accountability and as a warning of how global business decisions can imperil lives.